


shelter something precious

by Anonymous



Category: Gridlocked (2015)
Genre: Bathing/Washing, Canon-Typical Violence, Caretaking, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Hurt/Comfort, Insomnia, Kidnapping, Kissing, M/M, Major Character Injury, Post-Canon, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Rescue, Sharing a Bed, Shaving
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-31
Updated: 2021-01-31
Packaged: 2021-03-17 08:47:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 14,703
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29097528
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/
Summary: His phone buzzed.Saved by the bell. He reached for it, where it had been lying facedown on the corner of his desk, and flipped it over, thumbed the screen. It was either an alarm he'd forgotten about, or yet another freaking text from Brody—The screen lit up. It took him a second to understand what he was looking at, what he was seeing. And then he froze, and abruptly every inch of his body was on red alert.
Relationships: David Hendrix/Brody Walker
Comments: 1
Kudos: 3
Collections: Five Figure Fanwork Exchange 2020





	shelter something precious

**Author's Note:**

  * For [cherryontop](https://archiveofourown.org/users/cherryontop/gifts).



> I loved all your suggestions for h/c scenarios (bed rest! help with bathing and shaving!) and also emotional h/c (thinking you've failed somebody! pushing yourself too much to do better!), and I also could not resist getting Brody in trouble and sending David in all scary and SWAT-y to save him. There's also bedsharing, though it isn't for warmth's sake. So, yeah, please enjoy this medley of about half your prompts, cherryontop, and I hope you've had a great FFFX!
> 
> Title borrowed from "[While Bleeding](https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine/poems/58289/while-bleeding)" by Doireann ní Ghríofa.

David had a lot of paperwork.

He wasn't excited about it. But he'd told Brody he had to get it all done before he was finally off medical leave—finally done being exiled, in other words. Finally back at SWAT where he belonged. And he only had a week left.

A shitty fucking excuse. But Brody had taken pity on David and let him get away with it. He'd rolled his eyes, told David he was in New York for _two_ weeks, so if David thought he was going to get out of spending time with Brody, he was shit out of luck.

David had given him a blank look and said fine. But he'd been going about sixteen different directions on the inside.

He still was. He sighed through his nose and stared down at the page in front of him, pen in his hand, no idea what the hell he was writing or why. Christ. He gave up, cut himself a break and tossed the pen down, and rubbed his hands across his face.

He didn't even know why he was giving Brody the runaround. It had been damn good to see him; David hadn't known it would be that good, hadn't realized something had been strained into an aching knot in his chest until laying eyes on Brody had unwound it instantly.

It had been—too good, maybe. David wasn't a guy who spent a lot of time sitting around thinking about his fucking feelings or whatever; but he knew himself. Bare minimum, he knew himself. He knew what he was good at, and what he wasn't good at. And maybe he didn't have the words to quantify the thing his stomach had done when he'd understood Brody was sticking around, was going to make sure he spent time with David if it killed him. But that didn't mean he didn't know what it meant.

He shouldn't have called Brody back. That was the problem. Dozens of phone calls, dozens of voicemails, like two hundred texts—but it would've stopped, probably, if David hadn't fucked up. Sooner or later, it would've stopped. Sooner or later, Brody would've given up on him, because he was too stubborn for his own good but he wasn't that stubborn.

But David had called. He'd barely said two words, and he _definitely_ hadn't asked Brody to come back, but Brody had done it anyway. And David could tell some part of him was in serious danger of taking that gesture all the wrong ways, if he let it.

It was Brody. He'd had money to burn even before _Gridlocked_ had been at the top of the box office totals for like six months running. He'd probably been bored. He'd probably been bored, and decided it would be fun, and he probably had ten million things to do in New York, and only one of them was hang out with David. It couldn't possibly be a big deal, not to him.

But David couldn't quite figure out how to silence the quiet voice in the back of his head that wanted to say—oh, come the fuck on. Brody had been bored? In _LA_? Who the fuck was David trying to kid? Six fucking months, and Brody was still leaving him a voicemail every other day. Brody hadn't had to come to New York. He must have wanted to. He must have wanted—

Jesus. David hadn't had to think twice about this shit in years. He was used to having a team, coworkers, subordinates. He was used to giving orders, and he was used to taking them. He'd had friends before. But two-thirds of them had turned out to be ready to kill him. He wasn't—he wasn't used to Brody. He wasn't used to feeling like this, to not knowing what the fuck he was doing.

He needed to get a grip, and he needed to get this goddamn paperwork done. And then he could panic like a teenage girl on his own time.

He took a deep breath, and he picked up the pen again.

His phone buzzed.

Saved by the bell. He reached for it, where it had been lying facedown on the corner of his desk, and flipped it over, thumbed the screen. It was either an alarm he'd forgotten about, or yet another freaking text from Brody—

The screen lit up. It took him a second to understand what he was looking at, what he was seeing. And then he froze, and abruptly every inch of his body was on red alert.

He'd been sent a photo. It was by itself, preview showing on the screen even though he hadn't actually unlocked the phone.

It was a picture of Brody.

He was tied to something. His shirt was gone. There was something stuffed in his mouth, held there by a binding, cord or twine or something, that crossed his cheeks, went around the back of his head. A gag. The lighting was crap, the preview tiny, but it didn't matter; David could pick out the dark shadows of bruising crossing his ribs, circling one eye. The skin had split across the bridge of his nose, and over one cheekbone, and he was bleeding.

He was looking at whoever had taken the picture of him, eyes pointed above and off to one side instead of lined up with the camera, glaring.

David stared at it until the screen went black, idle too long. He needed to get up. He needed to move. He needed to go ask for a trace, find out where the hell this had come from—

The phone vibrated in his hand. He touched the screen again.

Another picture. Brody had been hit a couple more times since the last one. There was a split in his lip, this time, too, and he was facing away, head knocked sideways only a moment before the photo had been taken.

The third one was faster to arrive; the phone was still awake, David shoving his chair back to stand when it vibrated again. Someone else was in this one—only part of them, a hand fisted in Brody's hair and yanking his head back, another closed around his jaw. The gag was gone; Brody was saying something, mouth twisting, eyes bright.

Shit. If he mouthed off—

David stood, and then went still. A fourth one; but this one had an arrow over it. A video, not a photo.

It was twenty-two seconds long. David watched it twice, silent, carving every single detail of it into his brain. A low voice, not Brody's, indistinct. Brody pressing his lips together, chin high; a refusal, David understood, because then a voice much closer to the camera called him a stupid son of a bitch, and someone hit him. He was against a wall—David hadn't been able to pick that out before, the framing of the stills had fucked with his depth perception, but when Brody was struck, his head smacked backwards, hit it and rebounded visibly. "Jesus Christ, you dumb fuck, just say it!" The first voice again, but clearer now, audible.

"Fuck off," Brody said, slurred, mushmouthed. Then he smiled, that fucking douchebag smile he had when he was pissing somebody off and he knew it.

Then he got kicked in the stomach. The video cut on the choked noise he made when it happened.

Nothing immediately identifiable about the location. But maybe actual tech analysis would give him something; background noise, an ID on either voice, a closer look at the arms and hands for any identifying scars or tattoos.

It was worth a shot. It had to be worth a shot.

And then his phone buzzed again.

In retrospect, it should have occurred to him earlier. Who the fuck would send _him_ photos of Brody, kidnapped? David Hendrix, unwilling temporary cop-slash-retired special ops-slash-SWAT officer. They'd have to know the first thing he would do would be to come looking. Sure, people knew about him and Brody; it had been a big story, for a while. But anybody who knew what had happened six months ago also knew they'd returned every single bit of that money to lockup. They'd know he didn't have it, couldn't give it to them no matter what they did to Brody. This wasn't a ransom thing.

But in the moment, he was surprised. A text, this time. A text, and it was an address.

Maybe just where they wanted to meet him. Maybe it wasn't anywhere near where they were holding Brody.

But that was fine, he thought distantly. All he needed was to get his hands on one of them. Just one person, who knew where Brody was; they would tell David, because David would make sure that they did, and then David would go get him.

He put his phone in his pocket, and left his office. He didn't go to the forensics department, didn't turn his phone over to the geeks to be picked apart. He went the other way. To the armory, where he was going to sign out as many guns as he could get away with before he left the building.

The place was condemned, as it turned out.

David wanted to maximize the amount of time he was going to have before anybody could figure out where he'd gone, and why. So he didn't take his patrol car; he didn't need anyone noticing he wasn't in his office anymore and checking the GPS location. He went out and called a cab instead, and gave an address that was a good four blocks out from the one he'd been given.

In some part of his brain that felt far away from the rest of him, he discovered he was vaguely worried that the drive was going to fucking kill him. But he searched inside himself, and found somewhere where he could wait. Somewhere where he could sit quietly, and imagine the weight of each of his guns in his hands, count and recount the ammo he had on him. He could make himself ready, and he wouldn't scare the cabbie, and when he got out, he'd be good to go.

The cab pulled aside, slowed. He got out, and he paid. He was good to go.

Four blocks was easy, like this. His medical leave was almost over precisely because he'd finally recovered from all the shit he'd put himself through while he'd still been on his first round of medical leave. His bullet wound was nothing but a half-stretchy half-knotted place in his gut where he had a hell of a scar. He jogged the first two blocks without any trouble, slowed on the third and then circled the place from a block out.

Crappy neighborhood. No wonder the cabbie had given him a skeptical sideways look, even with the false address. Condemned building wasn't a bad choice, though, if you were going to kidnap someone and chain them to a wall and beat them until there was blood in their teeth. The odds anybody was going to be close enough to hear the noise were minimal, and the odds that anybody who did was going to be somebody the police would listen to were even lower, place like this.

It wasn't big. Three floors; old. Creaky, and the fire escape was hanging on by a thread. Roof probably wasn't a lot better off. Which meant David's options for alternate points of entry were limited.

Well. As it happened, he was kind of in the mood to say fuck it, and go straight in the front.

There were double doors, a chain around them with a crappy rusting padlock. David thought about it for a second, as he jogged up the steps, and decided on the shotgun.

The doors went pretty easily, which was satisfying. Sure enough, there were four guys right in the lobby, but the shotgun had startled them; they were still trying to catch up and figure out what the fuck had just happened by the time David strode in.

He used up the second shotgun shell on one of them, and then dropped the shotgun and switched gears—shot a second with his handgun, and by then the third had managed to draw on him and he had to duck for cover. There were a handful of dusty chairs in here, a bench; David crouched down and waited for the shots to stop. And sure enough, there it was, the gap while they reloaded. If the third and fourth Stooges had been smart, they'd have covered each other, alternated which one of them was shooting at him and which one was reloading. But he'd surprised them, and they'd both started firing at him at the same time, and now they couldn't cover each other.

He popped up. He already knew where they were, since they'd been shooting at him. He picked up a chair, rushed one of them and slammed it into the guy just as he was looking up from his gun in surprise; he took it right in the ribs, totally unprepared, and David hammered him into the wall and then waited long enough to watch him drop, groaning feebly.

The other one was shouting, maybe warning whoever was downstairs, but by this point David didn't particularly care. The guy slammed a fresh cartridge into place and leveled his gun at David, but David was close enough that he only had time for a single wild shot before David hit him head-on, smashed him backward into the edge of what had apparently been some kind of reception desk once upon a time, and then grabbed his head and slammed it down into the surface of the desk. Once, twice, and on the third one the damn thing broke, cracked apart and sent the guy crashing to the floor. David caught his balance at the last second, instead of landing on the guy face-first. Yeesh.

That was it; nobody left on this floor, or if there was, they were further away than David cared about right now. Somebody was calling up from—ah, there, stairwell going down. Probably trying to respond to the fourth Stooge's warning.

Too late, David thought, and took the stairs three at a time.

There were two more guys at the bottom of the stairwell, just about to head up. They saw him coming. Didn't do them much good.

Past them was one more, about to step through a doorway. He took one look at David and ducked back, shouting, which was helpful because that probably meant that was the right room.

David followed, shot the guy in the face and waited for him to fall and then caught the door against himself for cover.

He kept his gun up, checked the part of the room he could see, and then risked a quick look around the edge of the door.

He'd been right. There were three more guys, covering each other, guns up. And behind them, swaying against the wall, head hanging down, arms strung up over his head, was Brody.

David sucked in a heavy breath through his nose. He couldn't tell from here whether Brody was conscious—shit, he couldn't tell from here whether Brody was _breathing_. And if these motherfuckers had killed Brody—

He couldn't even think about it. He couldn't hold the idea in his head. It burned right through him. He didn't know what he was going to do, if they'd killed Brody; but it wasn't going to be good.

There was a fourth guy, standing a little apart. David clocked him too, systematic, split-second. It wasn't until he'd drawn back behind the door again, considering his options, that he understood that that face had been familiar to him.

He thought back. The guys in the lobby—he hadn't registered much of anything except where they were standing, what they had in their hands; how many shots it was going to take to get them out of his way. But the two at the base of the stairs, they'd had tac vests. He could picture it.

Damn. He should've noticed that.

But it made sense. All of it made sense. That he'd gotten the photos. That they'd come before the news had even broken, before anyone else had understood that Brody had vanished from his hotel room. That it had happened like this, quick and quiet and vicious. That he'd been given the address—because the point of all this wasn't actually Brody.

He took a second to reload, to breathe, to let his head clear. And then he brought his gun up again, ready to turn around the edge of the door and shoot if he had to, and he shouted, "Buchanan!"

Silence.

And then someone laughed, and—it had to be Buchanan; David had hardly spoken to the man, but there was something familiar about the voice. "Hendrix. How good of you to join us."

"Buchanan, let him go," David said.

"Oh, I don't think I will," Buchanan said. "He helped you, didn't he?"

"Buchanan—"

"I'm not stupid, Hendrix," Buchanan snarled, suddenly furious, all false amiability gone from his tone at once. "I know it was John. Six months ago—that was John Korver."

David let his eyes fall shut. "Yeah," he said. "It was."

"And you killed him. You _killed_ him. Everything that man did for you, everything he tried to give you—"

David snorted, unable to prevent it. "Yeah, well, right at the end there what he was trying to give me was a bullet to the head."

"You turned on him," Buchanan said. "What did you expect? He should've put you down like a dog. He should've known you couldn't be trusted—"

"Fine, okay, I get it, you're furious, you hate me, you're going to avenge him," David said, because nothing pissed off guys like Buchanan as much as getting interrupted. "Are you going to kill me or what?"

"Oh, I am," Buchanan said, low, cold. "Believe me, Hendrix, I am. But I think I'll start with him. You're going to have to wait your turn."

David didn't waste time answering. He swung around the door, and he shot the closest of Buchanan's men right between the eyes, just as the guy had been raising his gun to bring it to bear on David.

Buchanan was closer to Brody than David was to him. All he had to do was—jesus, whatever he wanted. He could shoot Brody, point-blank. Break his neck, cut his throat. Smash his nasal bone into his brain, or just crush his trachea and leave David to watch him gasp for air he wasn't going to get.

Luckily for David, Buchanan was pissed off enough that he wanted David standing right there. He wanted David to see him do it. Rushing his way through it while David was busy taking his remaining guys down one by one wasn't the plan.

He shouted at David; probably some more insults, some more bullshit about how great Korver had been, everything David deserved for putting him in the ground. David didn't listen to it.

He felt like he wasn't even there. Like he wasn't even doing anything—like he was watching somebody else tip a bunch of shelves over on top of one of Buchanan's guys, plug the other a couple of times, center of mass. Buchanan was shooting at him, too; hit him, even, nailed him right through the shoulder, but David only sort of felt it.

And then he was there, right there in front of Buchanan, and he slammed Buchanan backwards into the wall right next to Brody. Buchanan shoved at him, kneed him in the thigh and aimed an elbow strike at his chin at the same time, and David blocked one but not the other, head snapping back, a sharp explosion of pain cracking through his jaw, his teeth.

But it wasn't enough to throw him. Buchanan was about to bring the edge of his forearm down on David's shoulder where he'd been shot—but David knew that because Buchanan was telegraphing it with his whole body; he'd basically hired a skywriter. David took the opening it left on the side where Buchanan was raising his arm, jammed his elbow with all his weight behind it into Buchanan's solar plexus, and when Buchanan curled down helplessly at the impact, David was right there waiting for him: Buchanan's face, his nose, smashed right into the much stronger bones of David's brow and forehead, a headbutt Buchanan had given himself. He sagged between David and the wall, dazed, and David gave him an uppercut for good measure, cracking his head backward into the unfinished concrete.

He fell. David let him, already turning toward Brody.

Who was still breathing after all. But he was still hanging there, too, most of his body weight on his shoulders, and shit, if David didn't get him down fast enough that was going to fuck up his arms for good. Buchanan had secured him in flex cuffs, had run a cable between Brody's wrists and then up and over one of the heavy pipes crossing the basement ceiling, pulled it taut and wound it around a couple bolts set into the wall. When Brody had been conscious, he probably could've stood up straight and been uncomfortable but okay.

But he wasn't conscious anymore, and his wrists were probably screaming.

David felt Buchanan up and down, found a ka-bar and was up again as fast as his unsteady legs could manage. He went for Brody instead of the cable—put an arm around Brody first and worked the blade of the knife straight through the middle of the flex cuffs instead of fucking around with the cable. Last thing he wanted was to drop Brody on his face on the floor.

He felt Brody's weight start to settle on him as the cuffs gave, and then suddenly he was through, sinking to the floor, controlling the fall as Brody slumped against him. He managed to catch himself on his knees, Brody in his arms. He needed to—he needed to call back to the precinct, he needed to get Brody a goddamn ambulance. He needed to try to get the circulation back into Brody's hands, he needed to figure out where else Brody was hurt and how bad—

Brody's weight shifted, and every single thought fell out of David's head at once.

"Brody—"

"D'vid," Brody mumbled. His bruised eye had already started to swell up fat, but he was squinting up at David out of the other one, hazy-eyed, clearly struggling to actually focus on David's face.

He didn't look happy. He didn't look relieved. He fumbled one pale hand, clumsy and stiff and fucking freezing against David's skin, and he felt his way up David's arm, managed to claw his fingers into David's shirt.

"David," he said, hoarse but clearer. "David, get out. Get out of here."

Jesus. "Brody," David managed.

"You've got to," Brody went on. "You've got to—this guy, it's. This guy has a real hateboner for you, man. He wants to fuck you up. You've got to get out of here before they notice."

"Okay," David said, because he didn't know what the fuck else to do. "Okay, it's okay. I'll go. They'll never know I was here."

And Brody—Brody relaxed against his chest, like that was exactly what he'd wanted to hear. Like it was more important to him for David to go than for David to get him the fuck out of here. Jesus fucking Christ.

"Okay," Brody echoed. "Okay, good. Told me to tell you. Told me to ask for help. But I didn't. I didn't, 'cause I knew you'd come, and he wants to fuck you up."

He fell silent again, for just long enough that David thought he might have passed out for real this time.

And then he added, almost unintelligible, "Tough."

David stared down at him, heart cramping in his chest. And then he squeezed his eyes shut, and said as steadily as he could, "Yeah, kid. You're tough."

"David," Brody said, and then went out like a light.

Fuck tough, David wanted to tell him. You get in trouble, you fucking scream. You fucking scream, and you don't stop until you know I heard you.

But Brody wasn't there to listen, and David didn't know whether he could have gotten the words through his throat anyway.

It took longer than it should have for David to get his phone out of his pocket and make the call back to the precinct; but he didn't want to set Brody down for so much as a second.

* * *

Nobody managed to stop David from getting into the ambulance with Brody.

At the hospital, they forced him into a separate room for long enough to check out his shoulder, clean it up and stitch it shut. He'd lost some blood; he didn't need a transfusion or anything, but they wanted him on an IV for a while to keep his fluids up.

He waited until he was alone in the room. And then he took the IV out and left.

It wasn't hard to figure out which room Brody was in. Somebody in the hospital entryway had probably caught a photo of him getting carried in, put it on Tweeter or whatever. There was a small crowd starting to form, forced back away from the actual rooms themselves by several annoyed-looking nurses.

David didn't know for sure whether it was his badge, the big bandage taped down over his bare shoulder, or the look on his face that got him through. But whatever it was, it worked.

Brody was in a bed, out cold. No doctor, but that was good, David figured; nobody who could make him leave. The chart was there, and David took a look at it. He got through broken arm, dislocated shoulder, and the list of ribs Brody had cracked before he couldn't make himself keep going anymore and put it back.

It was a nice room Brody was in. Somebody on the staff had probably recognized him, too. Private, just the one bed. But there were chairs, lined up against the wall.

David grabbed one, dragged it over until it was closer to the bed. Not that he was—he wasn't going to hold Brody's hand or anything. He hadn't totally lost it.

He just had to be close enough that he could see whether Brody was still breathing. That was all.

He sat down, and he propped his elbows on his knees, and he watched.

Brody was in the hospital for three days.

Visiting hours came and went. David figured they didn't apply to him, since technically he hadn't been discharged yet for the GSW; he was a patient, not a visitor.

For the first day, Brody was out most of the time. He'd been hit in the head a lot, and his arms weren't as fucked up as they could have been, but they were pretty fucked up. Pain made you tired.

He probably didn't remember a whole lot, in between Buchanan stringing him up and beating him and the hospital. He probably didn't remember the ambulance. It was just reasonable, to make sure there was going to be somebody there—to make sure he wasn't going to wake up alone, in a strange place, no idea where he was or what was going on.

And David didn't trust anybody else to do it except himself.

Somebody from Brody's agency was in and out. Doctors, nurses. David got rid of anybody who came within ten feet of Brody's room with a camera, and the rest of the time he sat there quietly enough that half the time people came and left without even looking at him, without even noticing he was there.

He fell asleep in the chair a couple times. He tried not to, because he didn't want Brody to wake up while he wasn't paying attention, but it happened anyway.

Sometimes somebody tried to get him to lie down, tried to give him an IV again. He just waited them out and then got up and went back.

He wondered, occasionally, whether anybody else was doing his paperwork. He didn't really care.

That first day, Brody opened his eyes three times. The first two times, David wasn't sure he was really awake; he didn't say anything, barely even moved. He looked around a little, but his gaze was dull and fuzzy, and he looked at David kind of the same way he looked at the wall, the ceiling. David didn't think he was actually seeing very much.

But the third time counted. The third time, Brody blinked a couple times, cleared his throat, and then looked over—he saw David and made a thready little sound that was probably supposed to be a word, and then he winced and tried to clear his throat again.

There was a cup of ice chips on the table by his bed. David had been measuring time by it, dumping it out when it melted and then refilling it; it had felt stupid, but it had been something to do. Now he was glad he had. He pried himself out of the chair, stiff, and picked it up—didn't think twice about catching a couple in his fingers and holding them so Brody could suck them into his mouth, because it didn't seem nearly as important as the part where Brody was awake and not dead.

"Man," Brody said, when the ice chips were gone. "My mouth tastes like _ass_."

David leaned down until he could brace his forehead against the rail on Brody's bed and laughed, and then had to stop before it could—before it ended up anything else.

When he looked up again, Brody was grinning at him. Fat-lipped, lopsided, where there were stitches in his mouth, but it didn't matter; that was the first time David really felt sure, in his bones where it counted, that Brody was going to be okay.

Brody fell asleep again pretty quick after that. The second day was better. Brody woke up faster, and he could get ice chips for himself with the arm that wasn't broken and freshly bulky with plaster. He talked about how shitty he felt for a while, while David made sympathetic noises. And then he asked David what the hell had happened, which meant David had to tell him who Buchanan was, what he'd wanted, why.

David fell silent after. He sat there for a minute and then made himself look at Brody, who was staring back at him with narrowed eyes.

"You think it's your fault, huh?" Brody said.

It was. Obviously it was. David didn't say anything.

"Man, you are such an asshole."

David blinked.

"Trying to take all the credit! You fucking glory hound. Didn't you say he said he was pissed I helped you do it?"

"Brody," David said.

"He wanted to kill me first," Brody insisted. "He had it out for me all on my own, dude. This is the first time some Looney Tunes special ops motherfucker from my adventurous past has wanted to kill me, okay. I know it's old hat for you, but it's a brand-new premiere for me and I'm not letting you ruin it by calling dibs on the whole thing for yourself. Got it?"

David was pretty sure he did. Not the way Brody said it, but the way Brody meant it.

It didn't really help David do anything to cut down on the amount of time he sat there looking at Brody sleeping, with his heart pressing against his ribs like it was growing too big to fit in his chest anymore.

He tried not to let that show where Brody could see it. He tried not to be weird about it. He was pretty sure he'd managed to convince Brody he was hanging around in Brody's room all the time because he was bored, not because something in his gut had decided there was a pretty good chance Brody was dead or actively dying unless David was looking right at him. He scoffed whenever Brody whined—because he was learning there was a difference between Brody when he was genuinely in pain and Brody whining for the sake of getting some attention.

Brody was going to be okay. Brody had been hurt in a lot of different ways, but none of the damage was anything like fatal. The ribs were cracked, not splintered; he wasn't even particularly likely to puncture a lung. He was fine.

But David didn't leave the room longer than he had to. And he blew his own cover on the third day, which was the day Brody insisted on checking himself out.

"No," David said.

"Look, it's fine, seriously," Brody said. "I think I can handle bed rest on my own time, in my own space. This bed fucking sucks, and the food is gross, and it's been forty-eight hours since I broke any bones, so they can't keep me off an airplane."

An airplane. David hadn't even thought about that—but of course Brody didn't mean a hotel room in New York when he said _my own space_. Of course Brody wanted to go back to LA—

"No," David said again.

"Okay, well, I'm like ninety percent sure you aren't going to bodycheck me into the wall if I try to leave this room," Brody said after a second. "I'm injured and stuff." He waved the arm that was in a cast, because he was an idiot who'd forgotten that was the same side where he'd dislocated the shoulder, the one he was supposed to keep in a sling and not move too much.

David didn't say anything. He didn't want to eliminate that as an option.

"Seriously, the doctor said it was okay. She wanted to keep me for another day, but she admitted it was just to be careful. I told her I wasn't going to sue if I left early and then did something dumb." Brody shrugged his good shoulder. "There really isn't that much more they can do for me here. I get to take the pain pills with me."

David wanted to argue. He really wanted to argue. But he was uncomfortably aware that the only argument he had was that Brody leaving the hospital and going back to LA meant David wasn't going to be able to sit in the same room with him and watch him sleep. And there was no way in hell he was going to say that out loud where Brody could hear it.

"Yeah," he said instead, and looked away.

He had to do it. It was the only viable option. Brody wouldn't say no. He'd wasted two hundred texts trying to get David to say exactly this. He wouldn't mind.

"Two tickets," David said to the wall.

He waited through a beat of silence that felt about ten years long.

And Brody said, "Holy shit, really?" and David jerked his head up and saw that Brody was smiling.

"Yeah," David managed.

Brody laughed. "So this is what I have to do to get you on a plane to LA," he observed. "Duly noted."

It was a joke. It was a joke, except that it was also kind of true, and David's stomach rolled.

Not again, he told himself. Next time, all Brody was going to have to do was ask, and he could have whatever he wanted, as long as it was something David could give him.

The plane ride sucked.

Brody had been right; he was allowed to get on a plane with broken bones, as long as they'd been broken long enough ago, which at this point they had. And it was Brody, so of course he'd shelled out for first class—not just seats, but an entire fucking airline cabin, swank as shit, with a bed and everything.

But that didn't make the flight shorter, and it didn't make the pressure change less weird. David could feel it in his shoulder, waking up his through-and-through like it hadn't been half a week since it happened. And Brody must have felt it too, because he got seriously fucking snappish until David made him take his meds and then waited for him to fall asleep.

Once they were on the ground again, though, it wasn't so bad. David still hated everything about LA, but he could admit, if only to himself, that it was a hell of a lot easier to navigate when you were doing it with Brody Walker. Brody's agent had arranged a car for them, a couple guys to meet them, so they didn't have to fuck around with baggage or anything—they could just get the fuck out of the airport and leave.

Brody had bought a house. David knew that already; Brody had left him a voicemail about it. _Gridlocked_ had done so well he'd been able to buy outright. But there was knowing it, and then there was being able to go straight from the huge, soft, climate-controlled interior of the car to someplace somebody actually lived. Brody had only had it for about two months, but nobody could fill a space like Brody. Just stepping inside, David could feel the difference, ten times better than a hotel room.

It was about the least bad a six-hour-plus airline trip with a bullet hole in you could be, all things considered—and David had experienced enough of those that he could say so with confidence.

The first thing David noticed about the house, besides the part where it felt like Brody, was that it was huge.

And the second thing was that it was super fucking quiet.

"Man, home sweet home," Brody was saying, letting his head tip back on his shoulders.

David looked through the massive main room, up one hallway and down another. He didn't see anybody. He couldn't hear any footsteps.

"Nobody else lives here?" he said.

Brody glanced at him, eyebrows up. "What? No, dude, it's my house—"

"No, I mean," David said, and then Brody seemed to catch his drift; he flushed a little, looked away and shrugged his good shoulder.

"Well, I mean, there's, like—groundskeeping dudes and whatever," Brody said quickly. "Gardeners. Uh, and there should be food and stuff. It's not going to be all cobwebs on the banisters and old Chinese growing new lifeforms. My agent got a housekeeper, he comes by twice a week."

David gave him a level steady look.

"I was going to be in New York for two weeks!" Brody said. "You didn't _have_ to come back with me. I'd have hired a nurse or something—"

He stopped, maybe because David had felt the look on his face change and didn't know what it had changed to. It just—jesus, he couldn't stand it. He couldn't stand thinking about it. That there was nobody in all of Los Angeles that Brody knew and cared about and trusted to look after him when he'd broken his arm and cracked half his ribs, when some asshole had almost killed him because of David. That he'd have called his agent and paid money to some stranger, because that was the closest he could get to having somebody who fucking cared about him.

Fuck.

"If you try to pay me for this," David said, "I'm going to kick your ass."

It wasn't enough. It wasn't what he wanted to say.

But Brody looked at him for a minute, and then started to smile. "No, dude, you have to be nice to me, I broke my arm," he said. "Anyway, come on, mi casa es you casa or whatever. I'll show you around."

It was a nice house.

David could tell there was a fault line in it: the rooms Brody actually used the most, his bedroom and a lounge on the same floor, the kitchen, the TV room with its gigantic fucking plasma screen—and then everywhere else. It was a nice house; but it was too big for one person, and David couldn't stop thinking about Brody with a broken arm and a fucked-up shoulder, rattling around in it alone.

Brody was still supposed to be taking it easy, so once the grand tour was over, David made him sit the fuck down. He could tell it had been the right call by the degree to which Brody didn't protest, just the one token effort before he gave up and relaxed back into the couch, eyes drifting shut.

"You don't have to stay here if you don't want to," he said after a minute, very low.

David looked at him, silent, until Brody cracked an eye—probably to check and make sure he was still in the room.

"Yeah, I'd hate to get stuck in this shithole," David told him, deadpan.

Brody snorted. And then his face smoothed out, turned serious again, and he said, "I mean it, though."

David raised an eyebrow at him.

"I'm not, uh." He stopped, gestured at his cast with his good hand and then reached up to rub awkwardly at the back of his neck. "I mean, you saw what a good time I was in the hospital. I'm just saying. If you get bored, or—sick of me, or whatever—"

Jesus.

"I used to crouch in one spot doing surveillance for twenty-two hours at a time," David said, because it was easier than trying to explain the difference between annoying the shit out of him and boring him, and just because Brody did one like he was born to do it didn't mean the other was even marginally relevant.

"Okay," Brody said, but he was still watching David, lips pressing themselves into a line.

"I mean it, kid," David tried. He paused and let himself look away. "There's—there's nowhere else for me. After—"

His throat closed on the words _a close call_. Brody was fine, he told himself, and his eyes rose without permission, found the plane of Brody's chest in his shirt, tracked the way it moved: in, out. Breathing. Alive.

"Yeah," Brody said, and this time he sounded like he meant it. "Okay."

David left him there and went down to the kitchen, half a test to make sure he could remember how to get there and back, half because he actually had wanted a glass of water. By the time he got back, Brody was asleep on the enormous sofa in front of the TV.

He drank his water, and started working out an operational schedule in his head: how often Brody needed to eat, how often he needed to take his pills, which ones needed to be taken on a full stomach and which ones didn't. He took the opportunity to double-check all the labels on the bottles, to go through the packet of care instructions he'd stared the doctor into giving to him.

Technically speaking, he'd been given some medications himself. But he'd already stopped taking them. He'd always hated the way pain medication made him feel, and he knew he could handle it. He wanted to keep the world sharp around the edges, to know he was going to be able to wake up in two seconds flat, more than he wanted his shoulder not to hurt.

He checked the fridge, which was also enormous. David's tactical mindset had extended to cooking; he'd picked half a dozen things he liked, and he'd learned to cook them perfectly, and that was it. Maximum efficiency, minimum conscious effort. Brody had the ingredients for four of those things. Not that they couldn't order in, but it was good to have the lay of the land.

He'd have to take a look around outside, run the perimeter. Maybe once Brody was asleep. Place like this, gate and everything, there had to be some kind of security staff; maybe that was included in Brody's definition of "groundskeeping dudes and whatever".

But he had it under control. He'd run point on way more complicated ops than this. Brody was okay, and David was going to keep it that way.

* * *

It felt like it was already evening to David by the time Brody woke up again. But Brody had gotten them out of New York on pretty much the first flight there was, and half the travel time had vanished with the timezones they'd crossed to reach LA. Technically, it was only midafternoon.

Brody rubbed his eyes with his good hand, yawned and sighed and shifted a little, making a face. He hadn't looked around; David was still safe to keep watching him.

And then suddenly his stomach burst out with an extremely loud opinion about how long it had been since Brody had eaten on the plane, and Brody started laughing so hard he almost tipped himself right off the couch.

David helped him down to the kitchen. Cooking was all well and good—but sandwiches were faster. He'd already scoped out the fridge, and the rest of the kitchen, too; he knew where the bread was, the mayo, pre-sliced cheese and deli meat, lettuce and tomatoes. By the time he was sliding a plate across the counter, Brody was watching him with a tiny line between his eyebrows.

Shit. He'd skipped the meds, but that didn't mean he wasn't off his game. He should've realized he was giving himself away.

Brody didn't call him on it. He just watched David for a second longer, and then said slowly, "Thanks."

David had made a sandwich for himself, mostly because it was worth the effort to establish a joint routine; that would make it easier to keep Brody on track, if it was just time to eat instead of time for David to make him eat. He took a bite, and it was fine. He took another, and suddenly he was fucking starving. Brody had started eating before he had, but it was David's sandwich that was gone first.

When Brody was done, he let out a satisfied sigh, and rubbed his good hand across his face. He sat like that for a second. David didn't look away.

And then Brody opened his eyes, without warning—caught David red-handed. He didn't move, and for a long stretching moment, they were just staring at each other. David felt abruptly conscious of everything: Brody's eyes, the color of them. The way the early afternoon light was falling through the massive kitchen window. The exact amount of space between him and Brody, and the exact amount of movement it would take to close it.

Brody cleared his throat, looked down and then lifted the arm in the cast, and clonked it twice against the counter. "Um, so," he said. "Do you have a minute?"

David could see the awareness of what a stupid question that was cross his face a moment later, but it was too good an opening to surrender. He gave Brody a long flat look, and said, "Yeah, I guess maybe I could pencil you in."

"Gosh, thanks," Brody said, grinning, and then he seemed to catch himself, sobered a little; David watched a sudden hint of color rise into his cheeks with a slow feeling of foreboding, and then Brody added, "Because I really need to take a shower."

"Bath," David heard himself say.

And that made Brody flush the rest of the way, pink, as his mouth dropped into a startled 'o'. "Um. What?"

"Bath," David repeated, because there was no way out but through. "Plastic wrap's a pain in the ass. It's a lot easier to hold your arm out of the way of a bath. Trust me."

It was true. At least when you were alone, which David usually was. When you were alone, when you'd broken a leg or your dominant arm. When you were fucking sick of lukewarm three-minute military showers. When part of the way you'd learned to let yourself know you were home, safe, was to do something as pointlessly luxurious as lower your dirty bloody aching body down and stop holding yourself up—

None of which applied to Brody. But he couldn't take it back now.

"Okay," Brody said. "Bath. Sure."

In keeping with the rest of the house and the furnishings, Brody had a gigantic fucking bathtub.

Which meant David got a grace period, because he had to sit there and run the water, just short of too hot to stand, until the whole thing was full.

Brody could take off his own clothes. That part was fine.

But then he came in. He came in, and David looked up from the tub, and Brody was standing there awkwardly in his boxers, broken arm tucked instinctively against his chest, and jesus, David didn't know how he was going to get through this.

He'd been worried, in the dim wordless way he let himself worry about that kind of thing, that he was going to do something stupid because Brody was—because Brody had taken his clothes off, and David spent too much time thinking about what he looked like even when he had them on.

But now he knew that wasn't going to be the problem. The problem was going to be that Brody had taken his clothes off, and less than a day ago he'd been in the hospital because somebody had hung him by his arms and hurt him a lot.

David had been looking at his face the whole time. He'd gotten used to that part. But the rest of Brody's body was new, and jesus. Three-quarters of his chest was blooming purple—mostly the dark kind, the kind that was starting to fade toward green, instead of the kind that was vividly angry, but that just made David imagine how much worse it must've looked two days ago. His legs weren't so bad, but that was only relative; he'd definitely gotten a steel-toed boot in the thigh at some point, the bruise so deep it was almost black, the shape of it unmistakable. There was a ring of discoloration around his shoulder where it had been dislocated, and thin hard lines around each wrist where all his weight had been hanging from the flex cuffs—long sleeves had been enough to cover them, until now.

"David," Brody said.

David jerked, turned away and didn't turn back until he was sure his face was empty.

Brody hadn't moved. He was still standing there, waiting. But something in the line of his back had relaxed a little.

"Okay, come on already," David made himself say.

Brody looked at him searchingly for a second, and then quirked one corner of his mouth in half a smile, and came to stand next to the tub, a stride away from where David was kneeling by the tap.

David looked at him, and raised an eyebrow. He kept his voice very, very level, when he said, "I get it, you don't take a lot of baths. But I'm pretty sure you're supposed to take those off, too."

"Yeah," Brody said. "Right. Totally."

He hooked the thumb of his good hand in the waist of his boxers, and tugged. David didn't look down.

"You know, there are people who would pay good money to be in the room while I took off my boxers," Brody added, a little too fast—and then he had to shuffle half a step, awkward, balance off, and David reached out reflexively and steadied him with a hand on his shoulder. "You could probably take these and auction them off on eBay for, like—"

Jesus Christ. "Brody," David said.

Brody was looking down, picking his feet up out of his boxers where they were puddled on the floor with more concentration than David thought he really needed. He was all pink again. And then, one step at a time, his gaze climbed haltingly from David's knees on the tile to David's elbow, his shoulder, his ear—his face.

"I'm not going to auction off your boxers on eBay," David told him gravely. "That's not sanitary."

Brody snorted.

David still had a hand on his shoulder; he moved it now, found the side of Brody's throat with his thumb, curled his palm around the nape of Brody's neck. "It's okay," he said, more quietly. "You need my help, and you're going to get it. Don't feel—"

He stopped. _Embarrassed_ seemed like too much, embarrassing in and of itself to apply to someone else right to their face. And _shy_ seemed ludicrous, when he was talking to Brody fucking Walker.

But Brody's face changed like David had found the right word and said it already. He reached up and touched David's wrist, and he said, "Okay."

He needed help getting into the tub—he couldn't reach out and grip both sides to lower himself in. David held onto him, bore half his weight until he could take it himself, and then Brody sank into the water and stretched himself out, tipped his head back against the lip of the tub and made a noise in his throat that sent David's brain in all the wrong directions.

"Holy fuck, that feels good."

"Supposed to," David managed, and then he cleared his throat and went to chase down some soap and shampoo.

Brody could only sort of wash his hair, one-handed. Everything was easier for a minute, because David got to needle him for being slapdash and Brody got to bitch about how David was judgmental. And then it got a lot harder, because the obvious solution was for David to slide his hands into Brody's wet hair and do it right himself. Brody's hair wasn't that long, except maybe for the goofy bit in the front that stuck up most of the time; that didn't help, because there was something that felt essential, too significant, about—about the shape of Brody's head in David's hands, the weight of it. David had probably smashed more people's heads into concrete than he'd ever had a chance to wash anybody's hair, and it got to him in ways he wasn't expecting.

He extracted himself from the situation before it could escalate, by the simple expedient of deliberately dunking Brody without warning. Brody sputtered his way up, splashed David with a wave of bathwater that got all over the floor, and rinsed his hair the rest of the way himself.

Brody had towels the size of Liechtenstein. David threw one down to soak up the water Brody had thrown on the floor, and held up a second one for Brody to mummify himself in. He collected Brody's boxers, managing not to think about the action more than it deserved, and he was two steps from the bathroom door, trying to guess where in Brody's room he would be able to find clean clothes, when Brody stuck his head out of the towel burrito he'd made and said, "Hey, hang on."

David turned to look at him.

"So, uh, the thing is." Brody stopped and cleared his throat, reaching up with the arm that wasn't broken to rub at the nape of his neck. "The thing is, this shit is driving me nuts."

He switched gears, moved his hand from his neck to his face—scratched at what was now almost four days' worth of unhindered stubble, which was turning the douchey little weird goatee thing Brody usually wore into something approaching the beginnings of a beard.

And David knew where this was going. He didn't let the look on his face change.

"Two minutes, tops," Brody said quickly. "I can't really—'good' is relative, okay," and it was, David knew; the arm that wasn't broken was still kind of unreliable, shook or ached if Brody used it too much. "I can't do it myself, but it's easy as shit with this thing—"

He turned away, opening a cabinet. David realized distantly that he still had Brody's boxers in his hand, and he set them on the counter, because he didn't know what the fuck else to do with them.

Brody emerged from the cabinet with one of those ridiculous monstrosities of a power razor, with fancy fucking angled heads on it and nothing that looked like an actual goddamn razorblade. Jesus.

David went disposable for the simplicity, or went without, or used a straight in a pinch. He'd learned a long time ago not to need anything that required a reliable source of electricity.

But if this was what Brody had for him to work with, then fine.

He gave Brody a steady, flat look so Brody would know David was judging him, and then reached out and took it.

He knew what he was doing. He didn't make rookie mistakes. The shaving cream was in the same cabinet, Brody just hadn't been able to get it out along with the razor with only one hand; David leaned around him to reach for it, didn't touch him.

Applying it—no help for that. He kept his breathing even, lathered the stuff up quick and didn't let his gaze skip up toward Brody's eyes. Even concentrating on what he was doing, Brody's chin and jaw under his hands, only helped so much: he was inescapably aware of where his fingers were, that that was Brody's too-long stubble prickling under his palm as he swiped the shaving cream on in brisk even strokes.

But Brody had asked for his help, and David wasn't going to back out just because this might kill him.

Brody was uncharacteristically quiet, while David got him ready. Lucky for David he was still damp, skin warm and clean; that cut the prep time, made the foam come up easy. David thumbed the razor to life, and kept on not looking him in the eye.

He didn't bother trying to make it look the way Brody usually kept it. He had to draw a line _somewhere_.

But it fucked with him anyway. The weird still feeling in the air, a tension that felt like pressing silence even with the razor humming away in his hand. The way Brody actually fucking did what he was supposed to: moved with David's hand as David tipped his chin one way and then the other, down and then up, up, baring the unfairly long line of his throat, Jesus motherfucking Christ.

David breathed through it, kept his mouth pressed into a line like he was just concentrating.

Brody had been right: it didn't take that long. It was a relief when it was over, when David could flick the razor off again, except that just meant David had to grab a washcloth, get it wet and run it everywhere the razor had just been, leaving Brody's skin clean and beaded with drops of water that tipped their way down the line of his jaw, chased each other down into the bare hollow of his throat—

"Okay," David said, too sharp, too brusque, and he tossed the washcloth into the sink next to Brody and stepped away.

"David," Brody said, in a quiet leading way that made David's heart fucking stop. But then he cut himself off, moved suddenly and added, "Wait, shit."

David looked at him.

"Dude, your shoulder."

David glanced down. Hard to get a good angle on his own shoulder, but he didn't need a good angle to see the blot of blood that had soaked straight through the bandage into his shirt.

Shit. He'd popped a stitch somewhere—maybe helping Brody into the bathtub, maybe just raising his arm too high to reach Brody's face.

"It's fine," he said.

"Yeah, sure," Brody said. "That's why it's bleeding all over."

David gave him a flat look.

"I know, I know, you're the toughest tough guy," Brody said, rolling his eyes. He squirmed until his good arm was free of the towel, caught it and rearranged it until it was tucked around his chest. "I'm not offering to sew you shut or whatever. But there's totally gauze and tape in here somewhere. Come on."

"Brody—"

"Hey," Brody interrupted. "You need my help—or, well, you could stand to have it, anyway. And you're going to get it. Okay? You just helped me wash my fucking hair. You just shaved my face. Changing a bandage is, like, something people with two hands still need help with sometimes. Don't be stupid."

It was going along that was going to be stupid. But Brody didn't understand that, didn't know why, and David was trying to keep it that way.

"Fine," he said.

Brody had already turned away, was going through a completely different set of gleaming cabinets under that stupid shiny porcelain sink looking for the first aid kit; so it was okay to hesitate, to swallow and draw a slow breath before he could make himself step back toward Brody. Brody wasn't looking, and he didn't see.

David felt stupid, but he knew already that hitching himself up onto the counter was the better part of valor. He didn't need Brody standing between his knees—but he needed Brody pressed up against the entire front of his body in nothing but a towel even less.

Brody emerged from the third cabinet over in victory, gauze and medical tape clutched together in his good hand. David had been shot through the right shoulder, and it was Brody's right hand that wasn't encased in plaster up to mid-palm, so they ended up offset, Brody standing just to one side of David with his hip pressed up absently against the outside of David's knee, his thigh.

"Um, so, help me out here," Brody said, catching his fingers in the hem of David's shirt, and—right. It was funny, a little: Brody insisting on helping him, when Brody couldn't lift his arms much better than David could. But it made something in him relax, too. They were both hurt, and they were helping each other deal with it. That was a hell of a lot easier to swallow than pity.

David usually took off t-shirts the good old-fashioned way, hands crossed to grab the front hem and then up and over. But the second he knocked Brody's hand away, Brody squawked.

"Hey—what the fuck? Dude, that's just going to fuck up your shoulder worse."

David stopped. It would hurt; but lots of things hurt. You couldn't avoid all of them. Sometimes you just had to pick the hurt you thought you could live with. It would be fine.

"It's faster," was all he could think to say.

"Jesus, you are unbelievable," Brody muttered under his breath.

Together they worked David's shirt up, tugging it to the level of his good arm, and then Brody made him work his elbow through, slow and clumsy, and pulled the neck over his head, and then eased it cautiously off David's bleeding shoulder and down his arm to the floor.

"Hey—"

"No," Brody said. "You bled on it, David. It's a lost cause. I'll buy you forty. Now shut up."

He was the same way about the tape holding down the old gauze David had bled through. If David had been alone, he'd have tugged it off, each strip in one clean hard yank. Brody worked it up carefully, peeling it away, pausing whenever it caught. It was ridiculous—he didn't need to do it like that.

"Didn't I tell you to shut up?" was all Brody said, when this fact was pointed out to him.

The bloody bandage came up easily; the blood hadn't started to clot up or dry, so it didn't stick. The stitches were mostly intact, thick black lines holding David's shoulder shut, but sure enough, there was a gap. Oops.

Brody looked at David's shoulder. David looked at Brody, and wondered whether that was anything like the expression that had been on his face when he'd seen Brody's chest.

Brody stood there in his towel and cleaned David up, wiped the blood carefully away with a fresh washcloth he was apparently as willing to replace as he had been David's shirt. David wasn't sure he'd ever seen Brody pay this much attention, for this long, to anything. He wouldn't have said a word, wouldn't have flinched, if it had hurt; but it didn't. Brody's fingertips, the washcloth, were so light against the stitches, the skin under them, that David almost couldn't feel them at all.

Brody slowed down, once the worst of the blood was gone, and then stopped. Just stopped, washcloth spilling down David's chest, his upper arm, with his hand spread over David's skin.

He was staring at David's shoulder. And then suddenly, too quickly for David to look away and prevent it, he looked at David.

"I didn't want you to come for me," he said quietly. "I thought that asshole was going to kill you if you did."

"I'm fine," David said.

Brody bit his lip, and his gaze turned heavy, searching, against David's face. "So am I," he said. "You know that, right?"

David swallowed.

He couldn't help it. He couldn't stop himself. He'd kept his hands clenched tight around the edge of the counter, so he could be sure he'd sit there and let Brody touch him without accidentally touching Brody back; but his aching fingers loosened, and he was—he moved, reached out, opened his hand and set it against Brody's bare chest, over the edge of the towel. Waited, heart pounding, as if this were an answer he still needed, for it to move. In, out. Breathing.

"David," Brody said.

"Yeah," David managed, and let his hand fall, didn't look up. Couldn't.

"I'm okay," Brody repeated, and this time David almost managed to believe it.

Brody was wiped, after.

He didn't want to admit it, that a bath and five minutes holding still while David shaved him, five more minutes fucking with David's shoulder, was about all he could handle. But David could tell by the way he moved—kind of like he was made of cooked noodles—and by the way his eyes kept flickering shut, snapping open, flickering shut again.

He dragged on a fresh pair of boxers, a t-shirt he had probably never worn or even touched before. David didn't watch, but he wanted to; not because Brody looked hot like this, exhausted and covered in bruises and stumbling, but because—

Because it was still fucking with him, every time he wasn't looking at Brody for thirty seconds in a row. Every time he stopped watching Brody's pulse in his throat, Brody's chest moving.

"Okay, I have to—" Brody interrupted himself with a jaw-cracking yawn. "Jesus. I'm out. There's like fifteen guestrooms in this place. Dibs on the closest one, but other than that you do whatever you want, man." He shifted his weight, something almost tentative crossing his face. "See you tomorrow?"

"Yeah," David said automatically, just to get that fucking look to go away, that look like Brody thought maybe David was going to get sick of him and jet back to New York in the middle of the night.

It worked.

And then David stood there, made himself stand there, while Brody walked away from him.

He could occupy himself for a couple hours. He did a little warmup, testing himself, testing the limits of his shoulder. He went through the house properly, now that he didn't have to explain himself to Brody—learning his way around, getting a sense for its dimensions, identifying architectural quirks and hidden corners, checking all the windows. It was the best time for it, anyway: lights off, everything dim and shadowed. If he could get comfortable with the house like this, then in daylight he'd be fine.

The doors had keypads, but that didn't matter when you were starting out inside of them. David went and found some tape, unlocked one and then put a strip across the outside of it down low, a quick and dirty way to know if anybody else went in while he was on the perimeter. Wasn't likely, but you couldn't be too careful.

You couldn't be too careful, when you were leaving Brody asleep in his bed behind you.

Brody hadn't been kidding about the groundskeepers, the security. There was what had probably been a gatehouse a hundred years ago, a couple sheds tucked alongside it. The border of Brody's property swapped back and forth from wall to fence in a handful of places, but David didn't spot any gaps, anything that looked like it had been tampered with.

He ran the edge of it twice, until it started to get familiar, until he could tell himself which trees, which landmarks, were coming up next and he was right most of the time.

By the time he was done, it was almost one in the morning.

He went back in; the tape was fine, whole, and he peeled it off carefully and relocked the door like he'd never touched it.

And then it was just him, standing in the dark alone, with nothing left to do.

He remembered exactly where they'd been, exactly which room Brody was in. He wasn't going to watch Brody sleep; he was fucked up, but he wasn't that far gone.

He stationed himself in the hall instead, just around the corner. Dropped into half a doze, the one he'd perfected in the field, for when the mission wasn't moving forward for at least a couple hours but he was still in enemy territory, still couldn't afford to sink all the way into sleep and let go.

Wasn't ideal. He couldn't hear Brody breathing from out here.

But it was the closest he was going to let himself get.

* * *

They settled into kind of a routine, over the next couple days.

David looked after Brody. They ordered in a lot, or made themselves whatever seemed like the least trouble out of the options the kitchen gave them. Brody spent a lot of time lying around and bitching about his arm, his ribs, anything and everything—and then, every six to eight hours, he got pale and quiet, which meant he was actually in pain and needed to take something, even if by this point it was aspirin.

David told him he was stupid or annoying by turns, and sat and watched TV with him. That was usually when David ended up snatching a few hours of sleep: in the middle of a bright LA afternoon, explosions blooming hot across Brody's zillion-inch fuckoff screen, with Brody right next to him making judgmental noises at the "plots" and laughing at all the terrible dialogue.

And at night, when Brody slept, David didn't. He kept watch, twenty-four-hour shifts broken only by those sunlit afternoons, only by the span when he could guarantee the cold weight in his chest that Brody was safe.

It wasn't a sustainable pace, even for him. He understood, in a vague distant way, that there was something wrong with him. That something he hadn't needed in a long time, hadn't wanted to need ever again, had kicked itself awake the second he'd seen that first picture of Brody come into focus on his phone, and he wasn't handling it.

But that came second to making sure nobody fucking touched Brody ever again. Or at least for a while. At least until he got tired of the nannying, David lurking in the corners of his house like his fucking shadow; then he'd kick David out, and David would go back to New York and worry about how to deal with it there, where Brody couldn't see him failing at it. Until then, he didn't care that much.

As it turned out, though, Brody did.

Looking back, the first warning signs came at breakfast.

David had been living at Brody's for almost five days. Which meant over a week since it had happened, and on Brody, it was starting to show: he looked less shitty, more alert, the lighter bruises yellowish and fading, the split skin on his face healing up and the first dark bloody scabs coming off one at a time.

He was getting more comfortable, too—at first he'd forgotten about the cast sometimes, bumping it on everything and wincing every time. But now he was used to it, and his shoulder didn't hurt as much, so it was easier for him to move his arm around in general, too.

And at breakfast, he wanted waffles.

David gave him a flat look and told him he wasn't getting anywhere near the waffle iron—he did have one, along with about forty other gleaming appliances of various kinds that he'd probably never used before in his life.

But there was some mix in a cupboard. All David really had to do was stir, pour, and then hold the thing shut for a minute. It was doable.

Unfortunately, it had a flaw that feeding Brody cereal lacked, namely that David had to stand there holding the thing shut for a minute. And in that built-in lag time, he became aware that Brody was watching him, mouth pursed a little, something thoughtful in his face.

David met his eyes, and cocked an eyebrow.

Brody didn't look away, didn't try to pretend he hadn't been staring. He was sitting on one of the stools lining the side of the kitchen island, tall ones like there might be at a bar; and he leaned in over the island and said, "Dude, I've been trying to let you—you know, do your thing or whatever, but. I really am okay."

"Sure," David said evenly, and then the first waffle was done and he could shove it at Brody, start another and get a stack going, and Brody didn't need any encouragement to stuff his face, which meant talking got tabled.

He figured it was a warning sign, yeah, but just that Brody was starting to get sick of being mother-henned, herded around and made to eat and sleep and take something when it was obvious he was hurting.

But then Brody tried to push again, after lunch—on the couch in front of the TV, the place where David's eyes got heavy and he was finally willing to let them. And that time David recognized it for what it was.

Brody queued something up, incoherent and colorful and full of superheroes. David sat there, sinking gradually into the plush overstuffed fullness of the couch as his body relaxed an inch at a time. He could feel himself starting to blink slower, already losing the thread of the TV show and just basking in the sunlight touching him, the awareness of Brody's weight shifting next to him.

And then Brody reached out and touched the back of David's hand where it was spread over David's thigh, and said quietly, "Man, if you're fucked up, you can tell me. You know that, right?"

David tried to snap back to full alert. It only sort of worked. Suddenly the sunlight was too bright. His head felt full, pressure at his temples and behind his brows that wasn't a headache but wanted to be. He discovered he was kind of nauseated.

 _Sure._ That was what he was going to say. He'd reassure Brody that if he'd tell anybody when there was something wrong with him, it would be Brody—which was the truth, even though it didn't actually mean he _would_ tell Brody—and then call Brody a dumbass or something, and Brody would roll his eyes and go back to watching his terrible show, and David would seize the sleep he could get.

Except he couldn't get the word out. His throat had closed. He had to—he couldn't—he leaned forward, curled in on himself reflexively and put his head in his hands, because suddenly he couldn't hold it up any other way; his eyes were stinging, burning.

God, he really fucking needed some sleep.

"Jesus, David," Brody was saying, startled and abruptly closer to David's ear than he had been. David was on his right, the side without the cast, and Brody's arm came up, curving on a diagonal across one side of his back, a strong warm line that ended in Brody's hand cupping itself tentatively around the nape of David's neck, thumb following the arc of the base of his skull.

"I'm fine," David tried to say. It didn't work, but Brody seemed to get the gist anyway, if the way he huffed an unamused laugh into the side of David's shoulder was any guide.

"You're kickass at a lot of stuff, but subtle, you aren't." He shifted closer, solid warmth up and down David's side from shoulderblade to ankle, like—like he was sunshine all on his own. David hadn't specifically felt cold, but now he knew he had been, because god, that felt good. "And I realize I'm maybe not the most observant guy ever, but come on. You've been doing your whole weirdo SWAT routine, dude. Securing all the entries and exits, eyes on the target, checking out the—sightlines through the windows, or whatever the fuck."

He shifted, and David had to fight the sudden idiot urge to grab after him, make him stay; except he wasn't getting up. He was just leaning away for a second, using—using the edge of his cast, precisely angled, to press a button on the TV remote, bringing the volume down one tick at a time until it had settled at a low murmur.

"I get it," he said. "You needed to be that guy to get in there, to get me out. That's fine, that's great. I'm glad you can be that guy sometimes. But you did it, man. You're done." He reached over, brushed David's face with the wrist of the cast so David had to turn it, had to look at him; and then he said, eyes wide and sincere, tone grave, "Chill the fuck out."

David laughed. Snorted, really, thin and voiceless, through his nose. He felt abruptly weak, drained and shuddering, crashing.

And Brody could tell, because he pressed the point home immediately. "Seriously, some guy busts in here waving a gun around, what are you going to do? Faint on him?"

"Brody," David said, hoarse.

"You want to keep me safe," Brody said, "then fine, keep me safe: let the guy who keeps me safe take a breather until he can see straight. Okay?"

David swallowed. He didn't know what to say. He didn't know what to do.

Brody moved. Away from David, but he didn't let go of David either, so David had to move with him. He was—he was backing himself up, laying himself out along the length of the couch, drawing David along until David had no choice but to brace himself on a knee between Brody's leg and the back of the couch, hold himself up over Brody's side on one arm.

"Come on," Brody said.

And then he took David's other hand, the one that wasn't holding half his weight, and he pulled it up and set it square in the middle of his chest.

Jesus. He'd noticed. He knew.

David closed his eyes.

Brody breathed. In. Out.

"Come on," Brody said again, softer.

David was still at his right, hovering over his good arm. It wouldn't hurt anything. It wouldn't—wouldn't make this any worse, this helpless useless fixation every particle of David had on Brody. He could lie there for a couple minutes, if it would make Brody feel better, safer.

It was a big couch. Wide. There was room for David, between Brody and the back of it, if he lay on his side.

That didn't make it not stupid. But knowing that didn't have the impact it should, because David was so fucking tired, and he wanted to lie down almost as badly as Brody wanted to make him.

He did it. He wasn't lying on Brody's shoulder, just next to it, forehead pushed against the ball of it. Brody's good arm was still bent, curled, holding David's hand to Brody's chest, and Brody didn't let go.

It wasn't a big deal, David told himself. If Brody wanted it there, then David could leave it there. It was fine.

He closed his eyes, and relaxed against the long line of Brody next to him, and fell asleep between one instant and the next.

Something moved. He cracked an eye long enough to absorb the fact that he was surrounded by blue-gray dimness, that he was warm and comfortable, that his spine felt like hot molasses. Brody's chest was under his cheek, Brody's pulse soft slow thunder in his ear, which meant there couldn't possibly be any good reason to get up; if that movement was coming for Brody, well, David couldn't get any closer to Brody than he was, so he was already in position.

Except then it moved again, and it _was_ Brody.

Brody was trying to get out from under him, probably—except Brody had one hand hooked around David's upper arm, had the right angle of the cast draped over David's shoulders so David's neck was in the cool scratchy crook of it. "Oops," Brody muttered, face turned briefly away from David, and then, to David, "C'mon, here—c'mon."

David got up. He was never more than a foot from Brody; he didn't want to be, and Brody didn't want him to be, and he was still half-asleep so that didn't scare him like it should have. David had it easy, facing the right way to nudge Brody's legs off the couch and get his feet on the floor, and he ended up lifting Brody with him, arm around Brody's back, other hand left resting absently at Brody's waist.

Brody's breath caught a little. David didn't know why, and frankly he wasn't particularly curious about it. Whatever it was Brody was making them do, he was going to wait until it was over and then fall asleep again. He felt practically drunk on sleep, and it was awesome. There was nothing in his head right now except that.

When he was done, when he'd set Brody down again, they were standing. David didn't see much point in letting go, though, and after a second Brody laughed, an unsteady little breath in his ear.

"Goddamn, you're cuddly," Brody murmured. "At least when you're sleep-deprived and strung out on all that PTSD you got going. Come on, dude."

They moved.

David didn't know where they were going, and didn't care. He shuffled along, plastered to Brody, holding Brody up every time Brody's balance wavered to even the slightest degree.

"Here, okay," Brody said, after what could have been ten minutes or three hours, and then he dropped away from David gradually, tugging David with him onto—oh, that was the point, David understood vaguely. A bed.

Brody was half-assedly trying to push the sheets aside. David didn't care whether they ended up under or over them, and didn't help him, and finally Brody huffed and gave up, sank back onto the mattress and got his head on a pillow, and thank god, because that meant David could go back to sleep.

He needed to. The longer this took, the closer he got to the surface, and when he got to the surface, he would have to come to the understanding that this was a bad idea, this was incredibly dangerous, and there was no way he could let himself get in a bed with Brody.

And he didn't want to do that, because this bed was great, and Brody was warm, and David didn't want to let go of him.

He settled in against Brody, and kept his eyes shut, and breathed steadily. Brody breathed with him: inescapably, unavoidably obviously, with David's arm around him and David plastered to his back.

"Knew you'd want to be the big spoon," he heard Brody murmur warmly, somewhere really far away, and then he was under again, easy as anything.

He woke early.

Early in the morning, anyway. It had been—the sun was almost up, which meant it had been, jesus, almost fifteen hours. The light spilling into the room from the big wide windows was pale, indirect, but steadily brightening, not coming from the city.

And David was on a bed, wrapped firmly around Brody, skin hot and mouth dry.

He remembered, dimly, getting up off the couch with Brody sometime in the middle of the night. Hours ago, had to have been. Since then, they'd moved, but not a lot: Brody was on his back, turned toward David, cheek resting half on his own shoulder and half on David's, and David had an arm over his waist, fingers curled into the back of Brody's shirt.

David wasn't hard, at least. But he didn't think that was going to save him.

He lay there for a while, as the room brightened, as the light got warmer and thicker, as suddenly between one moment and the next there was the first gold-orange sunlight, falling straight onto the wall, almost blinding.

Brody twitched in his sleep, breathed weirdly and then steadily and then weirdly again. And then, too soon, something changed; a furrow crossed his brow, his eyelids tensing and then relaxing, and then he blinked a little, scrunched his face up and smoothed it out, and opened his eyes for real.

For a second, he was just looking at David, not really seeing him, not quite awake enough to understand what it meant that David's face was right there in front of him. And then awareness sparked, and he sucked in a breath.

David had time to think—huh. He didn't seem weirded out.

And then Brody said, "So the thing is, I'm kind of getting the sense that you, uh. Care about me."

Jesus.

"Like, a lot," Brody clarified after a second. "And I get it if this isn't the thing that's uppermost in your mind right now, but I have to admit it's right up there for me, and let's face it, if you were into, you know, smooth and good at picking the right words, you would not be into me. So. It's just—it _feels_ like there's a chance I could get laid here, and if there is, then for the record I'm all for it—"

David kissed him.

Brody went still against his mouth—but only for an instant. And then he made a sound in the back of his throat, surged up and sideways into David with all his weight; the arm in the cast found David's chest and pushed. David couldn't figure out what he wanted, followed the pressure mindlessly until he was the one on his back, even as he strained up to keep his mouth against Brody's, and then—then Brody was scrambling over him, ungraceful, kneeing David in the thigh, until he had David under him and he was straddling David's hips, leaning down and kissing kissing kissing, hot and openmouthed and messy.

"Jesus, _David_ ," Brody said, practically into David's teeth. "You—you seriously—?"

David let his eyes fall shut. He felt the warm solidity of Brody's weight on him, Brody's hip narrow under one of his hands and the nape of Brody's neck, the soft prickling of Brody's hair, under the other one. Brody hadn't tried to actually pull up and away from him, and David moved him a little, brushed their faces together and then admitted into Brody's ear, "Yeah."

That did make Brody sit up, just far enough to meet David's eyes. He was staring, uncertain, mouth red.

"Yeah?" he said.

"Yeah," David said.

"Well," Brody said. "Okay. All right, cool beans."

"Cool beans," David repeated, as level and steady and dust-dry skeptical as he could get it, and Brody was still laughing when David pulled him down and kissed him again.


End file.
